"Stay Off the Fuckin' Flowers" [ft. Raekwon]

BlakRoc

Artists:

Blues-rock bands don't exactly have a perfect record when they try to make rap music, but this track, from the Black Keys' forthcoming and possibly ill-advised Blakroc project, works because the band knows better than to simplify. Instead, they turn out an amniotic psychedelic haze that never quite resolves. Improvised guitar curls and haphazardly plinked pianos circle each other without ever quite engaging, and even the drums refuse to lock into anything like a 4/4 thump. And it works because they got Raekwon, someone who knows his way around fuzzy guitars; just listen to what he does to that Spaghetti Western track on Cuban LinxII's"Cold World". "Stay Off the Fuckin' Flowers" is nobody's idea of a crossover track; instead, it's a stoned meditation on what happens when two genres push each other further into their respective headspaces. It's like Edan's Beauty and the Beat, except with good rapping. It doesn't sound like the future, but it does go well with weed, and that's enough.